This one night

“Will you stop that?” Niea frowned over her shoulder at the quivering mass of fur keening in the far corner. She put a slim cigarette to her lips and drew in heavily, held for a long moment, and then let out the fragrant smoke. It hardly made a difference as the air was already dense with the same blue smoke.

The mass unfolded to reveal a tall wolfman wearing a pair of ragged jeans and a faded blue plaid shirt whose once shiny mother of pearl buttons were densely covered in grime. He keened once more but managed to turn it in to a high pitched question.

“How can you smoke that foul clove shit? It burns my nose! Plus, while you may not be worried about living anymore, some of us are!” He crossed to the boarded up window nearest to him and began slamming his fist in to it. The weathered wood soon gave way and splintered outward letting a thin stream of cool fresh night air in to the suffocating room. He put his nose to the little hole and eyed her while working to widen the small spot.

Niea gave a throaty laugh and shook her head.

“YOUR health? YOU the werewolf who tried to commit suicide by jumping off the roof of a two story building downtown last week? You, my friend, are lucky there was a pool underneath those trees. Otherwise how would you finish your hunt? And thats another thing! How HEALTHY can it be to eat so many crack addicts that now you get the deetees if you miss a meal?”

The wolfman growled unhappily at her and pushed harder than he had meant to on the remaining wooden blockage. It fell away and he almost followed it through the long thin brick window casement. Niea closed the distance between them with a swift stride and grabbed exposed tufts of hair to haul him back.

“Fuck! That HURTS! Would it kill you to be a little more gentle??” He glowered at her from beneath his pronounced canine brow and bared his overly pointy teeth at her. She sneered at him and made a flourish at the length of her rotting body.

“And you’re one to talk about others shortcomings.” He snarled to cover the gaffe. “Look here.” He reached toward her and she flinched away a little but he plucked something from the bloodless gash that ran from her ear to the corner of her mouth.

“Look at these teeth!” He brandished them in front of her eyes. “They aren’t even YOURS! As a matter of fact I’m pretty sure they aren’t HUMAN.” He gave her a more critical look as the smoke haze had almost cleared from the room and his eyes and nose weren’t watering so badly. He turned her this way and that poking and grabbing. By the time he was done there were no less than twelve teeth, three chunks of femur, and two almost whole scapula in his hands all in various states of decay.

“Where the Hell did these come from?!” He demanded. She shrugged, took another drag on her cigarette and loosed a fresh stream of smoke right into his wolfish nose. A sneezing fit caught and held him new runnels of clear liquid making their way out of his soft eye tissue and nostrils.

She stepped over to the window and stood a little behind him. She looked out into the night and lit a new cigarette off the last nub of the old and did some contemplating. She had not always been in such bad shape. She had been one of the most beautiful Queens the dead of the modern era had seen. She had also been one of the smartest. She had organized the living dead so that they would prey only on the dregs of society. They had avoided an uprising for almost two hundred years, and the city had been, moderately, better for the ghoulish work her people did. She had been a paragon of her kind in both mind and body, until two weeks ago.

She and a small band of her brightest had been feeding in a cozy little crack house they had found when this fucking asshole had come in on them and started maiming and permanently killing her little band. Apparently he was a ‘big fish’ and they had ruined his merchandise in their fervor. He had done things to her that would most certainly have killed her were she not already dead.

“We need to stop squabbling and get to work.” Focusing her eyes back on the scene outside the window. She had found the werewolf then. She had heard about him before but had no reason to seek him out. Those of the underworld rarely bothered each other but in this case, fresh out of followers as she was, she had needed help to set the trap. The wolf had been trying to get his claws into this slimy character for a while. While she and her kind were usually do gooders out of necessity he had actually started out to ‘fight crime and injustice’, or some such crap. Tonight would be something of a pinnacle for him while for her this was pure revenge.

A slight shuffle came from the darker end of the room they stood in. The werewolf threw a cautious eye in that direction but she shook her head.

“Don’t worry, it’ll all be fine.” A clatter below proved to be the swift form of their mutual prey. It would be mere moments now. Niea moved into the dark and the werewolf found his own shadow next to the door. The wait was interminable but then the door was creaking open. There he was stupid and solitary walking confident into their trap. The werewolf lunged and a shot rang out but a normal bullet never hurt a wolfman.

Niea pulled a mason jar filled with Mama Juju secret sauce and the soul of a fierce warrior, who also happened to like men, alot, from her bag. She smashed it against the thick chest of the troll she had chained there. The soul leaked in through the wounds and as soon as sense focused the beasts eyes she set it free.

“Here you go big man. One last night on the town.” She smiled with her too wide mouth down at the man who had literally been scared shitless. Well that might make it easier for him she supposed. The wolf sat back smiling a drooly smile and wagging his tail as the troll-warrior mix took the man in its huge hands.

“And after my buddy here is finished returning what you gave to me the other night, I think dog boy’s hungry.”

This is in response to a Terribleminds challenge. We were to go to theyfightcrime.org and get a pairing to use in the story. Mine was ‘He’s a suicidal drug-addicted werewolf looking for ‘The Big One’. She’s a chain-smoking kleptomaniac queen of the dead with the soul of a mighty warrior. They fight crime. It was supposed to be 1k. Mine is slightly longer at 1133. Ah well.

3 Responses to “This one night”

“How HEALTHY can it be to eat so many crack addicts that now you get the deetees if you miss a meal?” – Have to say, did have a chuckle to myself when I read that line. 😀

Great combination to pick and worked well. That it turned full circle from meeting to end, with all its ramifications, I enjoyed. I also liked their friction, yet with underlying sense she’s just using him, leaving their future beyond this story uncertain.

“Where the Hell did these come from?!” – Could easily see this changed to “where in Hell,” complete with nonchalant internal monologue along the lines of “don’t know, never been, but heard it’s nice this time of year”. Word count as ever the issue though.

I only just got mine within count and, comparatively, mine is really a fragmentary snapshot.